Lent II/Orange Sunday -Year B 02/25/2024

Lent II/Orange Sunday
Sean C. Kim
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
25 February 2024
 
 
Today’s Orange Sunday Mass is part of our continuous prayers for peace and healing in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at the Chiefs Super Bowl rally on February 14. This past Wednesday evening, we held a Prayer Vigil. It was beautiful and moving. Each of us lighted candles in memory of those who have suffered from gun violence and in hopes that this scourge on our society will end soon. Lenette Johnson, who is a parishioner and chorister here at St. Mary’s, offered a powerful and eloquent witness during the service. I would like to share some of her mesage with you this morning.
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Lenette is a retired music teacher from the North Kansas City and Kansas City, Missouri, public school districts. She recalled how life changed for her and her students at school after Sandy Hook in December 2012, when twenty children and adults were killed in the shooting.

After Sandy Hook, the active shooter drills began. 1) The first drills, teachers and students were to hide from the shooter. 2) Then a few years later, teachers were told to hide and then flee from the shooter.  3) A few years later, teachers were asked to hide, flee, and then fight the shooter. Throw whatever was in your classroom at the shooter. In my classroom, it was keyboard instruments!! I was emotionally affected by these experiences, and I could only imagine the trauma that the children were feeling. My daughter went through her entire school life with active shooter drills. And yet the white elephant in the situation, the guns, was never addressed.
 
As I listened to Lenette, I thought about how in the 1950s, schools did so-called duck-and-cover drills in the event of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Remember those? I was too young, but I’ve seen photos and videos of the drills. Now, in our nation, we are doing drills not to prepare for a foreign attack with atom bombs but to protect ourselves from individuals within our own communities who wish to do us harm. What kind of society have we become?

As you know, in the recent Chiefs rally shooting, eight children were among the twenty-two people hit by the gunfire. And I just heard on the news yesterday that there was a sixteen-year-old student at Olathe Northwest High School who brought a loaded gun to school just this past Friday. There have been many other similar cases throughout the metro area in recent years. And need I list the examples of school shootings across the country, such as Columbine in 1999 and Uvalde, just a couple of years ago, in 2022, in which so many innocent children have died or been injured and traumatized for life? The active shooter drills are by no means the result of paranoia. Sadly, they are necessary precautions against a very real daily threat.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we read about the Massacre of Innocents. King Herod, threatened by the news of the birth of a king, slaughtered all the children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18). Today, in our society, we have our own Massacre of Innocents, as the senseless gun violence claims the lives of innocent children.

So, what should be our Christian response to the gun violence? As with other major social and political issues in our society, Christians are divided. Some call for strict controls; others claim the right to bear arms. Gun violence is a complicated and contentious issue both in analyzing the problem and in providing solutions. I know that here at St. Mary’s, we have a broad spectrum of views and opinions on the matter.

But on one point, we, as Christians, cannot be divided – our commitment to peace, a society free of gun violence. Whatever may be our analysis of the problem, whatever may be our solutions, we have to come together in working to end the gun violence and creating a peaceful and safe society. After all, we follow a Lord who is the “Prince of Peace.” At his birth, the angels in the heavens sang, “Peace on earth.”

Moreover, during Jesus’ life and ministry, children held a special place. In the Gospels, we read of how much Jesus loved and cared for the children. Parents brought their children to Jesus so that he would lay his hands on them and pray. When the disciples tried to chase them away, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17).

Some of you know that I attended a Community of Christ Church for a brief period. When I was a kid growing up in Independence, Missouri, my siblings and I attended Sunday School at Second Church. Back then, it was called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or RLDS; the name change to Community of Christ came later. The reason why we went there was my parents were good friends with the organist, and the church had a great Sunday School program.

At one time, I was deeply immersed in the beliefs and practices of the RLDS Church, but since then, my faith journey has taken me in very different directions. I no longer subscribe to most of what I was taught at Second Church, but one part of the RLDS legacy in my personal life that I will always cherish is their emblem, which can been seen on their buildings and church publications. Picture a small child standing in the middle with a lion lying next to him on his right and a lamb standing to his left.  A child, a lion, and a lamb – it is a beautiful and powerful image of the hope for peace.
The emblem is based on a passage from the Book of Isaiah:

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child will lead them…They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).
 
For me, this vision from Isaiah is the goal to which we strive, a world in which former enemies do not hurt or destroy but live in harmony side by side and the little child has nothing to fear. As followers of Christ, we are called to build this world of peace, a world with no active gun drills in our schools.

In closing, I would like to share with you the prayer that Lenette offered at the Prayer

Vigil:
Dear Lord, we whisper NO MORE in our prayers at night as we remember gun violence victims. We say NO MORE as we go through our day as we remember students and staff of gun violence. We shout NO MORE when we are at rallies and remember all those affected by gun violence. Help us to have the strength and courage to do those things that will lessen gun violence in our city and nation. Amen.